I don't think its overpayment at all. He was making $2.3 mil. The Preds used a first round pick to get him, he did well, was a part of their win over us in the playoffs, he's going to get a raise, $3 mil sounds about right. You could make the argument he wasn't worth $2.3 mil before, but after what he did for them and what they traded to get him, they have to give him a raise.

He was very good against us.

"If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!" - Kierkegaard

The Preds pride themselves on being big, mean, and pretty good defensively. Gaustad's an identity signing as much as anything else, really. (IMO)

"If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!" - Kierkegaard